Moments In Time
by Smidgie
Summary: A series of unrelated 'moments in time' that could possibly occur in the world of Phantom of the Opera. Second chapter up: 'What should have happened when the mask came off.'
1. Two Things

Hello!

I'm trying something new here: publishing the stories I've been working on for livejournal here to get some feedback on them... They'll mostly be EC, but some RC might sneak in every now and again, sorry!

**Disclaimer:** Many people have claimed to own 'the Phantom of the Opera'. I have never been that brave. . . or that stupid. It still belongs to Monsieur Gaston Leroux, who doesn't really care what we do with his characters since he's dead.

Hopefully more to come.

Prompt: #11B (never really mine).

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"Christine," he began. "Two things. Christine?"

"Yes, my dear," she said absently to the mirror. Raoul turned and jerked her to face him.

"Two things, and then we will not have to see each other for another month. Understood?" He knew, subconsciously, that she did not understand; that she never would. Poor, insane Christine: locked in the depths of her own mind and getting madder every day.

Why was always the wife that got to go insane and be locked, safe and sound, in the attic?

"Two things, and then I will let you be. The children are home tomorrow."

"Whose children would that be?" she asked brightly. His palm itched to slap her. His head knew she couldn't help being like this, but at times like this his breaking heart found it hard to listen.

"Yours, my dear Madame, yours," he said tightly. "Antoine and Mael will be home tomorrow. I trust they will not have to see their mother acting like a lunatic in front of polite society?" Clarity entered her eyes, more grey than blue, for a moment.

"Honestly, Raoul, you don't have to treat me like I'm mad," she snipped at him. He breathed deep; God save him from his wife.

"You are, the majority of the time," he said quietly, but she had already drifted back into her dreamscape. "The second thing, wife of mine, is that you will not ignore the help or our guests any longer. You are the scandal of Paris, and all are whispering, when is he finally going to lock the madwoman wife away for good?" Christine stared dreamily at the mirror.

"Yes, Raoul," she twittered happily. "I understand." He heaved a breath.

"All right, then," he whispered. "All right, Christine," because even if she was mad and nothing like the blonde, free spirited girl he had married, he still loved her, and he would never, ever, lock her away in some horrible dark room like the dungeons of the Phantom.

Even if that sun-gilded hair was grey with time – though it had been fifteen years at the most – and the darkness, and the blue eyes were just as faded, she was still his Christine.

Raoul turned and glared at the mirror his wife stared vaguely into. "Damn you," he hissed, his words extended over time, and turned to leave the room.

_I told you, boy. She was never meant to be yours._

He whirled, expecting a dark masked figure and a pair of burning, possessive amber eyes accessorizing a black mask with a catgut noose. But there was only his mad, sad wife; languishing among the dust and ashes from burnt roses, the pretty but bland furniture (much like that in the opera house dormitories) and the empty cognac bottles, and he wasn't sure whether that feeling in his gut was relief or disappointment. He walked out of the door, ignoring the black mask hanging over the doorframe like a gypsy curse, and he heard his wife begin to sing, her voice a fragile croak.

_Angel of music, do not shun me…_

I could say the same thing to you, he thought grimly, and shut the door, leaving his wife to the ghost of her past.

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Please review.


	2. Replay

Hello again. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Disclaimer from first chapter applies.

**Prompt: **6. Curiosity (~listen to your heart cry)

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His hands were ice, frigid and frozen, and his eyes were a ferocious amber-gold behind the mask, and Christine Daae was terrified out of her wits, because those eyes were no longer behind the mask.

His hands, long, unlovely artist / musician / architect / assassin hands, covered his face, and her own covered her eyes, pressing, as though to crush the image of that Face out of her mind. His sobs were heartbroken, the collapse of his hopes and dreams and love shattering his heart, and her own were terrified, reconciling the Angel with the monster. They sat before his grand organ, her on her knees as though in supplication before him, and he curled up, protecting himself from her piercing eyes, the horrified expression he expected her to be wearing.

Except there was no horrified expression, no scream, no terror and no fear. There was disgust, horror, repulsion, like looking upon a dead body lying in the grave, but she was done with fear. Fear had died with her father.

And all she saw before her was a broken creature, destroyed because of her cruelty. She edged closer to him, to _Erik_, and whispered down to him. "Monsieur? Please stop crying."

Her voice bit through the miasma of grief around him, and he managed to stop for a second, as though waiting for her to speak again. But the sobs surged up anew, and he buried himself inside his misery again.

She petted his hair gently, then frantically, mussing and stroking the thin strands between her bony fingers. "Don't cry," she murmured in the darkness. "Erik, don't cry. It doesn't matter. I don't care. It's just a face. It's just your face. I don't care. Please don't cry."

The Face stopped its weeping, looked up at her, saw the quiver in her eyes and the shake of her hands and believed the beauty of her voice. She nearly fainted at the sight of its ugliness, but she kept her body and voice still. Only her eyes betrayed her as his rested on her, only her hands betrayed her as she shivered when she touched his icy own. She tangled her limbs around him, pressing her warm body to his. Propriety be damned, he was an insane, hideous murderer, and affairs could not really be any more improper than this. And if the worse thing she did in her life was offer comfort to a man she was fairly certain had never known any before…

Well. If that made her a terrible person, she didn't mind.

She let her heart beat against his, offered her handkerchief to dry his eyes – she didn't think she could quite bear to touch the Face quite yet. But he made no move to touch it and with something like mental recoil she touched the cloth to his face, wiping it free of tears, ensuring her hands did not touch his skin. Then she drew him back down to her, wrapped her arms further around him, and listened when he began to talk, of Mother and Russia and Persia and gypsies and fear and death and pain and a little sultana and fear.

He sat there, drawn into her arms, warmed by her tenderness, talking of the old terrors and the ancient torments for a long, long time.

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